The world is likely to build so many fossil-fuelled power stations, energy-guzzling factories and inefficient buildings in the next five years that it will become impossible to hold global warming to safe levels, and the last chance of combating dangerous climate change will be "lost for ever", according to the most thorough analysis yet of world energy infrastructure.

Anything built from now on that produces carbon will do so for decades, and this "lock-in" effect will be the single factor most likely to produce irreversible climate change, the world's foremost authority on energy economics has found. If this is not rapidly changed within the next five years, the results are likely to be disastrous.

"The door is closing," Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency, said. "I am very worried – if we don't change direction now on how we use energy, we will end up beyond what scientists tell us is the minimum [for safety]. The door will be closed forever."

If the world is to stay below 2C of warming, which scientists regard as the limit of safety, then emissions must be held to no more than 450 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere; the level is currently around 390ppm. But the world's existing infrastructure is already producing 80% of that "carbon budget", according to the IEA's analysis, published on Wednesday. This gives an ever-narrowing gap in which to reform the global economy on to a low-carbon footing.

If current trends continue, and we go on building high-carbon energy generation, then by 2015 at least 90% of the available "carbon budget" will be swallowed up by our energy and industrial infrastructure. By 2017, there will be no room for manoeuvre at all – the whole of the carbon budget will be spoken for, according to the IEA's calculations.

Allow me to congratulate Julia Gillard for having had the ability, under very trying circumstances, to make Australia move forward on this issue... A little step in the right direction, but a step nonetheless...

For the first time scientists have provided the most complete climate record of the last millennium and they found that the last 50 years in Australia have been the warmest.

The researchers from Melbourne University used 27 different natural indicators like tree rings and ice cores to come to their conclusion, which will be a part of the next United Nations intergovernmental panel on climate change report.

The findings show that no other period in the last 1,000 years matches the temperature rises Australia and the region has experienced in the last 50 years.

Report co-author Joelle Gergis says the findings are significant.

"It does show that the post-1950 warming is unusual in the Australasian region," she said.

"A lot of these sorts of studies have come out of the northern hemisphere and for the first time we have been able to say 'well we have collected all of our natural records from our region and this is what it shows and the warming is real and it is in the Australian region. It is not in some far away place'," she said.

But the denialists are still at it, stronger and sneakier than ever... They attack the science by attacking the scientitsts. For example one particular site — one looking seriously conservative and "informative" (don't be deceived by looks of precious blue typography — read Liberal conservative, we eat carbon for breakfast) — Simon says (who the hell is Simon? — I think someone is pulling our leg):

A little Googling from regular commenter Baldrick showed that the lead researcher on that story, Joelle Gergis, had posted on her blog in November 2007 about being pleased that Kevin Rudd had been voted in as PM, because now she might finally "see real action on climate". ...

Good one Joelle... Me missed out on the ETS because of petulant Tony, but now we have the carbon tax that Tony still wants to repeal. Congratulations Joelle, but we still need to fight the idiot denialists, who, with their amazing choice of ignoring of the facts, will do anything to protect our (human) "desire" to exploit the carbon god to the hilt...

Yes folks, presently there is a lull in the world climate activities... Sure there was a tornado in Japan a couple of weeks ago, but since that, we haven't seen anything climatically threatening someone somewhere on the planet... So climate change must have gone bumkun since the 220 tornadoes in the US at the beginning of the year... Not on your nelly... CLIMATE CHANGE IS REAL... GLOBAL WARMING IS REAL... And we need to do more to curb our (EXTRA) emissions of CO2...

By using "fossil" fuels, WE ARE BRINGING BACK INTO THE CARBON EQUATION, ENERGY THAT WAS STORED AWAY IN THE long ago PAST. The "fossil" fuels we are using were "put" away by earth's natural processes in which the rise in temperature was a key part of the process... As we release this "EXTRA (in modern geological time frame) carbon energy" into the atmosphere, we are enforcing back a warmer world — and with it a more turburlent sky with climatic extremes... No two ways about it.

For too long, world leaders have tried appealing to our better angels to bring about a solution to climate change. It's time they aimed a little lower, at our hip pockets.

Far from being the greatest moral challenge of our times, as Kevin Rudd framed it, climate change is shaping up as one of the greatest economic challenges of our times.

Paying more under a carbon tax? You'll pay even more if the business-as-usual climate change scenario is allowed to play out.

Soaring food prices, water prices and home insurance premiums - these things are already happening to some degree. Add to that the destruction of jobs in agriculture, fishing, forestry and tourism.

These are just some of the warnings contained in a report released this week by the world's most venerable and conservative economic body, the World Bank.

Titled Turn Down Heat: Why a 4C Warmer World Must Be Avoided, the report was prepared by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Climate Analytics. It warns there is a 20 per cent chance of temperatures rising by 4C by 2100 the threshold for truly catastrophic climate changes.

"A 4C warmer world is likely to be one in which communities, cities and countries would experience severe disruptions, damage, and dislocation," it says.

It is likely that the poor will suffer most and the global community could become more fractured, and unequal than today. The warming simply must not be allowed to occur ... the heat must be turned down. Only early, co-operative international actions can make that happen."

These aren't the rantings of some left-wing tree-hugging group. The World Bank is the world's lender of last resort, a central pillar of the global economic system.

With the International Monetary Fund, it imposed harsh austerity measures in Latin America in the 1980s and again during the Asian Financial Crisis in the 1990s.

Headquartered in Washington DC, the World Bank is stacked with hard-headed economic rationalists.

It is also, according to its president, Jim Yong Kim, "a leading advocate for ambitious action on climate change, not only because it is a moral imperative, but because it makes good economic sense".

Economists are always weighing the costs and benefits of things.

In an economic sense, any costs associated with combating climate change must be weighed against the costs of doing nothing. And these costs are significant and escalating.

The story, a reprint from the Sunday Times’ Jonathan Leake, is just the kind of editorialised-opinion-disguised-as-news which The Australian has become known for whenever it reports about climate change.

Let’s have a look through this piece; it begins:

THE world’s climate has cooled during last year and this year, temperature data from Britain’s Met Office reveals — just before this year’s talks on cutting global greenhouse gas emissions.

The figures show that, although global temperatures are still well above the long-term average, they have fallen since the record seen in 2010. The findings could prove politically sensitive, coming ahead of the UN’s climate summit in Doha, Qatar, where the global system for regulating greenhouse gas emissions faces collapse.

The threat comes because the Kyoto Treaty, under which developed nations pledged to cut their carbon emissions, expires at the end of this year. Doha is seen as the last hope of securing an extension.

In such a febrile situation, any data casting doubt on climate scientists’ predictions is potentially explosive.